Welcome to December. To celebrate the holidays and our wonderful gift to be writers, we are having an intense writing advent activity. Each day we’ll post a different exercise. Some of them will relate directly to your WIP. Others may make you start something new or step out of your comfort zone. You can do one a day or if you get behind, make some of them up during the weekend. Today we are posting two exercises for December 1st and 2nd. If you do all the exercises, you’ll have good luck for twenty years. We also might have a party because we love to talk about parties. Also, you will be a better writer.

December 1: Write a one sentence synopsis of your novel. No more than 25 words. The synopsis should include the following: at least one character, their choice/conflict/goal, what’s standing in their way, what’s at stake, action that will start them on their journey.

Play around with this. You can also write this for a novel you want to write or hope to write if you don’t want to do it for your WIP.

December 2: Write the last page of your book. Even if you are just starting. Even if you have a full draft. Write a new last page. Try to envision the ending now. Or a new ending. Maybe write three new endings like the wonderful finale of Clue.

And finally, from Toni Morrison:

I didn’t plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing was always marginal in terms of time when the children were small. But it was major in terms of my head. I always thought that women could do a lot of things. All the women I knew did nine or ten things at one time. I always understood that women worked, they went to church, they managed their houses, they managed somebody else’s houses, they raised their children, they raised somebody else’s children, they taught. I wouldn’t say it’s not hard, but why wouldn’t it be? All important things are hard.